What’s the Next Right Step for You?: 1 Kings 11:26-43

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Here we are, we are back. The Bible

Guys are back in the house. The Bible Guys plus

one plus one with a special guest, Wesley Woods. I'm

Jeff Forster. I'm half of the normal the regular normal normals.

Not that's not the correct word. Let me let me

retake restate that part of the regular Bible Guys. Chris

Arba is out today this week with us, but we

have Wesley Woods is in the house with us, and

so it's going to be even better, even better. Maybe

maybe we're gonna miss Chris, but we're glad that you're

here today. So, Wesley, today is Christmas Eve. Yes, for

the people who are listening in order right as we

release it, this is Christmas Eve. And not only is

it Christmas Eve, but some people say extremely important national

holidays other than Christmas Eve. So it's also National last

Minute Shopper's Day.

I can relate.

Yeah, so we need to hurry up into the podcast, right,

and National Eggnog Day? So are you an agnog glover?

When I was younger? But not really. I mean I

could take it or leave it.

I despise it. I despise it. This is one of

those national holidays.

What do people put cinnamon or what do you put

on I don't know.

I know putrescen. That's what they put on it. They

put nastiness on it, that's what they put on it.

And then are you a last minute shopper?

So I don't consider it last minute shopping? It is

an intentional choice to go shopping on the last day,

making rapid extractions.

From various shops. Yes, that's how I classify it.

Yeah, that makes sense. And all you're doing there is

managing your time well up until that day.

Yeah.

Now here's the thing. If you do go out on

Christmas Eve, there is no browsing. No, you literally know

what you're getting.

You get in. It's kind of like mission impossible.

So you're forced not to fret and worry. You're forced

to go. That'll be nice. That's nice.

You get in the car.

Okay, So do you plan way ahead on your Christmas

purchases or do you just it's so whatever catches your

fancy in the moment.

Now, I normally have an idea of what I want

to get and then you just get in and out quick.

One day, Well, what happens if it's not there anymore?

One day, Jeff I went to Birch Run Oakland Mall, Summerset,

all before like three pm.

On the same day. You just get in and yeah.

For our listeners from not in this region, he's talking

about a two and a half hour distance between between

malls here.

Yeah.

Yeah, wow, just.

Gun it and doing the speed limit. Yeah.

Yeah, you get there and then you get out.

Okay, So does has a couple of questions for us

to celebrate. Let's pull some questions from AI. Okay, so

these are questions AI asked, what you're going to get?

That's right. The first one is why does agnog always

look like it's a warm hug and a cup, but

after two SIPs you're questioning your own life choices.

It's overly sweet, it's thick. I don't know.

You're gonna have to answer that one for me, because

it does not look like a warm hug and a

cup to me.

Yeah.

Like I said, I could take it or leave it.

I couldn't even remember the last time I had eggnog.

I mean, well, I would like to ask Ai, when

was the last time you had aggnog?

I'm going to I'm going to do it right now.

I'm going to ask. I'm going to ask when was

the last time He's literally typing his in you had eggnog?

And see what response you do.

And see what it says. Okay. I don't consume food

or drink, but eggnog does sound like a festive treat.

When was the last time you enjoyed some? I'm gonna

tell him was none of your business.

Now. If it responds back, now, I will destroy you.

Yeah. This may this may cause the universe. This may

cause the destruction of university. Here picking a fight with Ai. Now,

let's just say fair enough, let me know if you

want to talk about anything else.

I'm here for it.

That okay, good, So we're gonna so AI has opinions

about agnog, but it's never had okay, because I was

a little confused about that for a minute. Okay. And

then the second question is is there a special badge

of honor for last minute shoppers or do we just

get gold star for stress induced survival? That sounds to

me like what you're doing, but it's.

Not stressful for me. It's like completely non stressful. You

have your list, you go in, you get the item,

get out.

Okay.

Now it would be stressful if I didn't have an

idea and then I'm browsing.

Okay, yeah, there's no time for that. On close it five,

do you do.

All of your Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve?

Every bit?

Everybody is yeah, before your mom forever, for your yeah,

for your family, for your wife, for your daughter. Okay,

and you just ba your dad your dad okay, Okay,

when I see him after Christmas, I'll be like, I'll

be like, Okay, you know he picked that out in

three minutes.

Here's the perfe of that though, the wrapping aspect of

it that happens like at three am.

Yeah, yeah, that's the worst part of it. Okay, Well,

there you go. AI had some opinions about Christmas, these

two big holidays that also go along with Christmas Eve,

National Last Minute Shopper's Day National Eggnog Day. If if

you are a last minute shopper and you stop off

for eggnog, maybe you should let us know right in

the comments today, And that was that was something.

Yeah, I think they should mail you eggnog.

No, no, do not do it. I will pour it

down the dream It's it's one of the most despicable things.

I think it's ever been invented.

This is almost like what Chris hate moment. It is.

Yeah, you want to know what made Jeff mad this

Weekgnog eggnog makes me mad this week? That's right there,

So talking about things that make people mad. God's pretty

mad at Solomon.

Yeah, he's going down the wrong path.

See what I did there? That transition. We're trying to

do cheesy transitions. So if you're a new listener today,

that's what we've been trying to find the cheesiest transition

we could think of. Yeah, there you go. So Solomon

has dishonored God at this point with his life where

he starts to try to blend all these religions together

rather than staying true only to God. And it's because

of the influence of his wives, the relationships he was

in caused him to go down this path. And then

God says, listen, I'm going to take the kingdom away

from your family. I'll let you keep one tribe two

he keeps part of Benjamin and Judah, and the other

ten are going to leave you. And so some of

his enemies begin to rise up. We talked about that yesterday.

But then it says here in First King's Chapter eleven,

verse twenty six says another rebel leader was Jereboam, son

of Nebat, one of Salomon's own officials. He came from

the town of Zareda in Ephraim, and his mother was Zarua,

a widow. This is a story behind his rebellion. Solomon

was rebuilding the supporting terrocesm repairing the walls of the

city of his father, David. Jeroboam was a very capable

young man, and when Solomon saw how industrious he was,

he put him in charge of the labor force from

the tribes of Ephraim and Manassa, the descendants of Joseph.

One day, as Jereboam was leaving Jerusalem, the prophet of

Hijah from Shiloh met him along the way. Ahijah was

wearing a new cloak. The two of them were alone

in a field, and a hydra took hold of the

new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces.

Then he said that Jeroboam take ten of these pieces,

for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says,

I'm about to tear the kingdom of the hand of

from the hand of Solomon, and I will give ten

of the tribes to you. But I will leave him

one tribe for the sake of my servant, David, for

the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of

all the tribes of Israel. For Solomon has abandoned me

and worshiped Astorreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, Chimas, the

God of Moab, and Molak, the God of the Ammonites.

He has not followed my ways and done what is

pleasing in my sight. He has not obeyed my decrees

and regulations as David his father did. But I will

not take the entire kingdom of Solomon at this time,

for the sake of my servant, David, and the one

whom I chose who obeyed my commands and decrees. I

will keep Solomon as leader for the rest of his

own life, but I will take the kingdom away from

his son and give ten of the tribes to you.

His son will have one tribe, so the descendants of David,

my servant, will continue to reign, shining like a lamp

in Jerusalem, the city I've chosen to be the place

for my name, and I will place you on the

throne of Israel, and you will rule over all that

your heart desires. If you listen to what I tell

you and follow my ways and do whatever I consider

to be right, and if you obey my decrees and

commands as my servant David did, then I will always

be with you. I will establish an enduring dynasty for

you as I did for David, and I will give

Israel to you. Because of Solomon's sin, I will punish

the descendants of David, though not forever. Salomon tried to

kill Jereboam, but he fled to King Sheshak of Egypt

and stayed there until Solomon died. The arrest of the

events in Solomon's reigned, including all of his deeds and

his wisdom, are recorded in the Book of the Acts

of Solomon. Salomon ruled in Jerusalem over all Israel for

forty years, and when he died, he was buried in

the city of David, named for his father. Then his

son Raya Bauham became the next king.

Yeah, well there you go. There's some good things in there. Yes,

I like verse twenty six. Another rebel leader was Jeredbaum,

son of Nabat, one of Solomon's own officials. Oftentimes, destruction

will come from within, Yeah, so he was on the

wrong path. And it wasn't some like outside invading force.

It was literally someone in his own camp that caused

this to kind of unfold. So I think that's very interesting.

When you're on the sin path, it's going to come

from within. It's not some exterior item that's going to

bring you down.

Yeah. And it wasn't that Raabaum did it or did

anything bad. He was just working hard. As a matter

of fact, it says that Solomon recognized, man, this guy

is a hard worker. He's very capable, he's a young leader,

and he was very industrious. Right, those are the words.

He's young, he's capable, he's industrious, And so Solomon put

him in charge of the entire labor force of the

tribes of Ephraim and Manassa, which are the descendants of Joseph. Right,

so Fraim winds up being apart from Judah, Ephraim's the

most powerful and influential tribe in the Northern tribes. So

there were twelve tribes of Israel. If you don't remember this,

let's talk about this just a second. So when Israel

gets its name from Jacob, God changed Jacob's name to Israel, right.

And then Jacob had twelve sons, and the twelve tribes

of Israel are the families of the twelve sons. Now,

the Levites didn't have tribal land. The Leevites were set

aside to serve the temple, to serve in the synagogues,

those kinds of things, right, to serve the people on

a religious basis. And then Joseph doesn't have a tribe. Instead,

Fraim and Manassa, Joseph's sons each get a tribe, right,

And so that's how you get the twelve tribes. All

the tribes are basically cousins. Everybody's cousins, and they wind

up taking different parts of the nation of Israel. After

they crossed the Jordan with Joshua yep and they began

to what happened was Joshua kind of took a map

and he divided the nation the land based on the

size of the tribes and how powerful they were, and

they were assigned to go and defeat the enemies in

that area. And then they settled in those towns, in

those villages, in those fields, and they manage your own space.

So they kind of had this coalition of tribes. It

was the nation of Israel. They each had their own governors,

they each had their own leaders. They are essentially, yeah,

that's exactly what's in the country, choosing to cooperate, right,

So they were the United States of Israel. Is kind

of how it would have been, right, So the states

were sovereign, and then they had a king over them.

It's kind of so these tribes. So what happened was Manassa,

I mean sorry, Ephriam was the most powerful tribe in

the northern ten and Judah by far the largest and

most powerful tribe in the south along with Benjamin, and

Judah protects Benjamin takes care of Benjamin. So oftentimes Benjamin

and Judah are mentioned as one tribe because they shared

a border and you couldn't really separate between one and

the other, and Benjamin was so small, So that's what happens.

So then here is this young man, he's clearly the

elite leader of the workers of Ephraim and Manassa. Solomon goes,

I love this guy. He's great. He's such a good leader.

And then God sends a prophet to Jereboam and says, listen,

God also saw in him, Hey, you could be a

good leader. And God makes a similar promise to him

that he made to David to Solomon, if you follow me,

I'll make a great nation under you, and your family

will be rulers forever. If you follow me. The opposite

is true too. If you disobey me, same thing's going

to happen to you. That is happening to you know,

Solomon today.

Yeah, there's one little point in here that I kind

of find humor in the Bible, and the fact that

it's very subtle, and we may have just if you're

reading the Bible, you may have just glanced over it.

But it says and Ahdra was wearing a new cloak.

The two of them were alone in to fill and

Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing

and tore it into twelve pieces. Now, if I'm going

to meet someone and I got a new leather coat,

yeah yeah, I don't know if I'm going to rip

that not that one.

Yeah, I'll rip up the old one that I'm not

using But I just thought that was funny.

Yeah.

I wonder if the Lord told him, hey, uh, did

you say ahija a hija aja?

I think I might have said he ahja.

Yeah. He said, hey, I want you to run down

to run down to Macy's, find yourself a nice new coat. Yeah,

I want you to have you got an important meeting. Yeah,

And he goes, oh, okay, he runs down to Macy's

and gets yourself a new coat. He goes over to

Jereboam and they go says okay, here's all you know,

and tear it in twelve pieces.

Yeah, come on, man, we see that happen often in

the label. Well, it's almost as if God is testing

us with things. Yeah, you know what's more important me

what I told you to do or is it the thing?

Yeah?

So I just thought that was very interesting.

And so this this single garment that you know kind

of is supposed to represent all of israel tribes. Yeah,

and then he said tear it in twelve pieces, and

then ten of them are going to go with you, Jereboam.

So that'd be an uncomfortable moment, quite honestly, because there

is no real indication until afterwards there's no real indication

that the people hated Solomon. Yeah, right, Israel prospered, Everything

was great. Solomon worked them hard and they were ready

for a little bit of a break, Yeah, certainly, But

and they drove. You know, he was a real driven leader,

and so I think the people were getting fatigue. But

there wasn't like this animosity. You know, David had almost

perpetual danger even from within, right, because he was a

warmongering kind of a guy, and he had a lot

of fighter warriors around him all the time. But Solomon

was more clever and more diplomatic, and it seemed like

things were far more peaceful. So it must have been

weird to Jereboam to suddenly find out. We don't have

any indication that he had aspirations to take the kingdom

or to be the king.

Right.

Everybody knew that Solomon was chosen and that God had

promised David that his kingdom would reign forever, right, all

these things, and so I think that this must have

been a really weird thing for him to hear it.

Maybe similar to David when David was anointed, you know,

David just a boy following his sheep, taking care of

his dad's business, the youngest of all the sons and

his family, and Samuel comes annoys him, says, you're gonna

be the next king. It must have been weird for

David because David's like, we already have a king. How's

this going to work?

Right?

And all of Israel knew the stories. They would rehearse

all the stories of David. All the children would have

grown up knowing the stories. And so here's David anointed

king and running from Saul for you know, decades, decades.

He's running from Saul. And I wonder if jere Bohm's like,

oh no, yeah, I'm not even sure I want this job, right.

So it's sometimes God just chooses you to do a thing,

and you know, even when you're not looking for it.

And jere Bohm had to have the courage to say, Okay, God,

you know I will follow you. I'll do what you

told me to do.

But here's the interesting thing, Jeff, along the lines of

what you're talking about in verse thirty three, at the end,

you know it's talking about obedience. I think for a

lot of people it can be difficult to be obedient

when you can't see the next steps you know oftentimes,

you know, God doesn't tell us he'll give you the

initial command. Then we have to trust him and have

faith that everything is going to work out. But oftentimes

we as human being things, we want the first step,

and then we want a diagram and then GPS coordinates

and then a line graph of how all this is

going to pan out and work out, and how God

is going to do it, when he's going to do it,

where the money is going to come from, how he's

going to fix it. And God is saying, I'm not

giving you any of that now. I just want you

to do step one right. And it's just difficult for

a lot of people.

I've developed the habit of trying to do whatever the

next thing is God God wants me to do right,

and I don't always do it. But as your faith grows,

and as you grow a maturity, and as you become

more and more convinced that God keeps his promises and

that God causes all things to work together for good

for those who love Him and are called according to

His purpose Romas eight twenty eight, all those things. The

more you become convinced that God's going to follow through,

the less fearful you are about six steps down the road, right,

So I've tried to do that in my life. So

a number of years ago, was it twenty twenty, I

don't know if you heard twenty twenty was kind of

a rough year. It's like a blur, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

that's a rough year.

Yeah.

So right at the end of twenty twenty, you know,

COVID's going on, everything's shut down, what to do, And

we were on a really great role at Heritage Church

right prior to this, and so things were going great,

and all of a sudden, the whole world just kind

of collapses around us. And then at the end of

twenty twenty two, I find out I had cancer. At

the time, and I've got all these plans. You know,

I'm fairly young, especially at the time, I was still

in my forties, and I just it was I was frustrated,

like kind of ticked off, like, come on, man.

Out of all time, right, and.

I just I felt like I had more I wanted

to do, and I was frustrated with that. And I

was kind of coming into that age where now all

these years of preparation and work, now just you're in

that sweet spot and leadership in your early fifties, you know,

is where you should be anyways. And so that's I

was thinking, Man, I'm coming into that season. This is

going to be such a powerful time. And then I

found out have cancer and think Boh might die, and

it wound up me. It was a bad kind of cancer.

As opposed to all those good cancers out there, This

this was was kind of aggressive. This had a potential

to be a really really aggressive cancer. So the uh,

the doctor comes in. He says, hey, I got bad

news and it could be bad and all these things.

And I left, and you know, we shed some tears

and all those things. But then very quickly I just

had this sense from God that God didn't speak out loud,

but has very strong sense that God said, hey, listen,

just do the next thing. Yeah right, That's what you've

been doing all along in ministry. Is as you've grown,

as you've grown as a leader, as you've grown as

a follower of Me, as you've grown as a person

of faith, you've learned to just do the next thing,

whatever that is, and I'll be with you in the

next thing. And then do the next thing, and I'll

be with you in the next thing, and I just

got this peace. And I remember talking to my wife

about it. I said, I know it doesn't make any sense.

I'm not in control.

Yeah.

And by the way, control is an illusion anyway, Even

as much as you try to control your budget and

try to control your schedule and try to control your

children and your relationships in your career, control is an illusion.

And so I had the strong sense God was saying,

you're not in control, and I am, and I'm going

to go with you on this journey and you just

take the next step. So I told my wife, I said, listen,

we're just going to do the next thing. I don't

even know what it is. The next thing. When the doctor,

do we believe that these are the right doctors? Yes, God,

please give us guidance through our doctors. I wound up

having a surgeon friend who specialized in my circumstances that

had just retired, and so I started sending all my

charts to him to so I always was getting a

second opinion. And as long as his opinion and my

doctor's opinions or my surgeon's opinions whatever aligned, then okay,

I believe that this is what So we're going together

on this journey, and the doctor would say, Okay, I

need to go to this appointment. Okay, I go to

that appoint I need to make this phone call. I

make that a phone call, go to this appointment, get

these scans. I go to that. All right, we're going

to do the surgery and this day, we're going to

do these things. And I just decided I was going

to do the next step. I couldn't think twenty steps ahead.

I wasn't in control of those I didn't know what

they were. And I'm telling you, God gave us a

piece of just doing the next thing. And I think

that when you're not sure about the future, you just

pull back and go God, I'm trusting you for the

whatever you show me to do next, I'll do that thing.

And so, coming out of the end of it, from

the day I found out I had cancer to the

day I had my surgery, miraculously was only twenty four days.

And this was during the COVID IT season when they

were canceling all types of suff.

So my surgeon told me there were one hundred and

sixty nurses out of the hospital at the time, right

out of the hospital that hospital system, and he had

to piece together his surgeon team because he couldn't get

all the surgical team that he normally used. And then

he had to use a different hospital than he usually

used because of the equipment he needed was only available

in that hospital at that time. It was phenomenal how

God worked all those things out and in twenty four days,

and thank God, because God rescued me, it didn't spread.

I'm cancer free today. All those things and we got

it just in time. The doctor was really clear on that.

We got to get just in time. So you just

follow the next step, whatever the next step is, and

God get peace. So now I have a friend who's

struggling with cancer and he came to me, So what

do I do next? And I said, just do the

next thing? Yeah, whatever, they just follow God. You've been

following God up to this point. At this point, you

have never actually been in control of your life. And

so just do the next thing. And this is it

for Jeroboam. Solomon of course does what David did or

what Saul did, and others they tried to kill Jeroboam.

So Jeroboam flees. That's the next thing, right, He just

does the next thing that God shows him to do,

and God had already made this promise. Now Jeroboam is

going to fulfill that promise. Nothing is going to disrail

God's commitment or promise to Jeroboam at this point. And

so even though Solomon, the wisest man in the world,

tries to kill Jeroboam, God helps him escape, gets him

down to Egypt, and he stays there until Solomon dies,

and then after that it all comes off the rails.

So and then I'm going to toss this in really quick, Jeff,

verse thirty eight, because I think this is a culmination

of everything that.

You just said.

When it says, if you listen to what I tell

you and follow my ways and do whatever I consider

to be right, and if you obey my decrees and

commands as my servant David did did, then I will.

Always be with you. Yes, And I think that's the key.

When you obey God, he is right there by your

side every single time.

Right. I don't really have any right to expect me

to be by my side when I'm doing my own

thing or when I'm disobeying his word. So you know,

you don't obey God's words, so you can go to heaven.

But God promises to bless you in this life when

you're obeying his word, right, and so here he's promising

to go with you and be with you every step

of the way.

What always makes sense, he said to obey him.

That's right, that's right. And so hey, that's the lesson

I think from this segment right here from jare Bohem.

So it's going to get kind of over the next

little while. I think we're gonna pivot for a few minutes,

for a few days and get into some of the struggles.

I think that you see Solomon having emotionally and spiritually

in the Book of Ecclesiastes, which has written probably about

this time. So we're gonna pivot to that tomorrow on

the Bible. Guys, so thank you for joining us today

and we'll see you tomorrow